Books / Cognitive & behavioural
Personality and Psychotherapy: An Analysis in Terms of Learning, Thinking, and Culture
In Personality and Psychotherapy (1950), John Dollard and Neal E. Miller draw together learning theory, psychoanalytic ideas and social science to develop an account of personality and psychotherapy.
Book details
Author of listed edition: John Dollard and Neal E. Miller
Edition: First edition (1950)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Edition year: 1950
Language and origin: English (United States)
Form and genre: Clinical & Theoretical Monograph
Level: Intermediate
Historical era: 1940–1959 · Object Relations, Existential & Client-Centred
Covers: Drive, cue, response, and reinforcement; Approach-avoidance conflict gradients; Repression as the inhibition of cue-producing responses (labelling); Psychotherapy as a set of conditions for new learning
APA 7th reference: Dollard, J., & Miller, N. E. (1950). Personality and psychotherapy: An analysis in terms of learning, thinking, and culture. McGraw-Hill.
What it is
Personality and Psychotherapy is a 1950 book by John Dollard and Neal E. Miller. The authors brought psychoanalytic ideas into dialogue with experimental psychology and social science.
What it covers
The book discusses learning, conflict and psychotherapy. Its historical learning-theory interpretations of distress should be read as proposals, rather than established explanations of every person’s experience.
Research and clinical context
The authors considered psychotherapy in relation to processes of learning and change. Their theoretical account does not by itself demonstrate that a particular intervention works or that all distress has the same cause.
Reading this record
This entry is based on library catalogues and an author bibliography. The full text and its detailed clinical claims have not been reviewed. The previously listed ISBN has not been verified against a publisher record for the stated first edition.
Paired academic and clinical scholarship
Paired work: Psychoanalysis and Behavior Therapy: Toward an Integration (Paul L. Wachtel, 1977)
Reference: Wachtel, P. L. (1977). Psychoanalysis and behavior therapy: Toward an integration. Basic Books.
A later book on psychotherapy integration; the full text has not been reviewed for this entry.
Sources and inspection notes
Supports: Catalogue identifies the 1950 first edition and publisher; full text not reviewed.
Supports: Library catalogue lists the 1950 McGraw-Hill first edition and both authors.
American Psychological Association. Neal E. Miller bibliography.
Supports: Author bibliography lists Dollard and Miller’s 1950 work; it is not an outcome study.